Bitcoin “whales” are not a joke, as it seems. The price of Bitcoin is fluctuating constantly with huge ups and downs along the way. Just like year, in December 2017, Bitcoin was trading for anywhere from $13,000 to almost $20,000 per coin.
Analysts and reports show that there are solid reasons behind the rise and fall of Bitcoin, such as fear of depreciating value, no real intrinsic worth, terrorist funding use and more.
One thing, however, is also true. More than half of all Bitcoins is stored in wallets worth millions, meaning that the distribution of Bitcoin is quite uneven.
According to a study published by Diar and later at CryptoDaily shows that 55% of Bitcoins are stored in wallets that have around 200 coins. When the price of a coin is around $5,000, these wallets easily account for millions of dollars.
Diar found a very specific percent distribution of Bitcoins as follows:
- 25% of the coins are held by hodlers, or long-term investors
- 30% of Bitcoin is either lost or cannot be traded
- 17% are held as speculative investments
- 13% are held as transactional currency
- 15% are stored in exchange wallets
Many have argued that the Bitcoin millionaires are essentially those people that believed in the technology and idea behind the coin as so hold on to it from the very beginning. For example, if you invested $5,000 in 2013 for Bitcoin you would have gotten around 500 coins, which at today’s prices is around $3.3 million.
Despite its great value, coins have been lost and 30%, the study shows, are either illiquid or lost. There were even stories of investors who committed suicide for not remembering their access key to their wallet back in the earlier years of the Bitcoin boom.
While it is not yet clear how the price of Bitcoin will develop, the primary value of the coin seems to be driven by the investors who are practicing the “buy and hold” investing strategy.